My gut tells me Tim Melia starts tonight for the Rhinos, and based on what I’ve seen — unless the 23-year-old has stage fright — Rochester should be fine. I don’t think veteran goalie Scott Vallow is 100 percent and with only three subs allowed in the U.S. Open Cup, there’s no way the Rhinos can afford to burn one tonight on Melia for Vallow, should the 10-year veteran get out there and feel his hamstring tweak again.

Knowing what’s a stake and knowing his place with this club, Vallow is secure enough to be able to go to coach Darren Tilley and say: “I don’t want to hurt the team, go with Tim.” And that folks is what being a true pro is all about. So maybe Melia, and a few other young Rhinos, for whom tonight is the biggest match of their careers, give us the game of their lives. The good thing is even something short of that, I believe, will be enough for a win. (Here’s a link to my story today).

For some of those young guys, tonight is a chance to turn some heads. Webster native and Crew technical director Brian Bliss will be here and as the saying goes in sports and entertainment, “You never know who could be watching.” If a Ryan Heins or Mike Ambersley shows something to Bliss, hey … you never know. For some other guys, like a Kenney Bertz or Andrew Gregor (or maybe even Ty Harden is here on loan with a bit of a chip on his shoulder?), it’s a chance to show MLS they’ve screwed up. That they were good enough before and are good enough now to play in MLS. Bertz could start for half the MLS teams the way he’s playing this season.

Let’s face it: The Crew isn’t coming here with guns blazing. Some former MLS foes have and played most of their regulars against Rochester, especially in the years following 1999, when the Rhinos embarrassed the MLS by beating four of its teams to win the national tournament. The Columbus Dispatchreported that team captain and defender Frankie Hejduk, forward Guillermo Barros Schelotto, the 2008 MVP of MLS, and defender Gino Padula didn’t make the trip here. First-year coach Robert Warzycha wants to rest them for Saturday’s first-place showdown at D.C. United and that’s understandable. A few other regulars might not play, either.

But the Rhinos need to watch out for Venezuela’s Alejandro Moreno. He wasn’t happy to be on the bench for Saturday’s 1-0 win over New York, but he had just returned from his national team duty so he sat. He’ll be ready tonight. Moreno had nine goals last year but has only two this year. It’s too bad the Crew didn’t see fit to ask Hejduk and Scheletto to come to Rochester and sign autographs for fans. Soccer still needs to sell itself every chance it gets in this country and I’m not sure MLS understands that.

We will we see some magic tonight at Marina Auto Stadium? Let’s hope so because it’s the type of win, even though I know the crowd won’t be huge because of Mother Nature (among maybe other reasons), the franchise needs and it probably means a quarterfinal home match with the Chicago Fire.

For some reason, even though as part of their marketing for this season the Rhinos are “celebrating the 10-year anniversary” of the 1999 Cup champions, Tilley doesn’t like to talk much about that year or compare the present to the past. I’m not sure why, especially since HE was a key player on that squad. Maybe it’s just that he’s more black-and-white as a coach. He knows all that means squat tonight.

I am, of course, a much bigger believer in karma and maybe if these 2009 Rhinos start thinking it’s THEIR fate to make a run, just maybe that gives them a bit more confidence tonight, a bit more of an edge. Then again, if I ran the Rhinos I’d have every guy sit for 25 minutes and watch a highlight video of the greatest moments in team history — the huge crowds, the great goals and big saves — and then say, pen and contract in hand, “Sign this if you believe you can live up to what you just saw.” Too many of today’s players, in my opinion, don’t understand what they’re signing up for when they come here. Nowhere else in this league other than maybe Montreal, is the bar so high. Bring home a trophy or the season isn’t a success. Is that an unfair expectation? Of course, but it is reality in Rochester.

I think it takes fate, luck, talent and heart to win matches like tonight. Think back to 1999. Some of those moments were a mixture of all that.

* Tilley’s goal in the 119th minute to outlast the amateur NY Freedoms in the 1st round. Heart and guts to keep going that deep into a match you KNOW you should have one earlier.

* Yari Allnutt’s diving header to beat the Fire, 1-0, in the second round. Talent to convert that shot.

* Mike Kirmse’s header to beat Dallas, 2-1, in OT in the quarterfinals. The 5-foot-10 Kirmse, I bet, scored about two or three goals in his career with his head and THAT was one of them?

* The fact that Mauro Biello was even here playing for the Rhinos because Montreal took the year off was fate.

* How about the prospects of playing most of that year without forward Jimmy Glenn and midfielder Lenin Steenkamp, who suffered season-ending injuries, and Rochester still won this thing?

* Maybe the most improbable win in team history came in the semifinals in a tropical storm in Virginia Beach. Rochester trailed Columbus 2-1 late, but Scott Schweitzer tied it in the 86th minute by banging a free kick from about 28 yards into a wall near the 18-yard-line. Tommy Tanner happened to be in that wall. He stuck his butt out, redirected it and it wrong-footed goalie Mark Dougherty. Then, in stoppage time, left-footed Rhinos defender Tim Hardy ripped a 35-yard shot with his RIGHT foot and beat Dougherty to win it. That was only the second goal — and I think the last one — in Hardy’s career.

* Finally, in the title match at Crew Stadium, even though coach Pat Ercoli and Doug Miller were NOT getting along then, Ercoli put Miller in as a second-half substitute and he delivered the go-ahead goal against Colorado. But mix in some luck because his 10-yard shot on the near post took a deflection and then went between goalie Ian Feuer’s legs. Without the deflection, who knows if it goes in, off Feuer’s leg or the post?

OK, so I rambled a bit, but … after tonight all that might mean nothing again. But then again, it could.

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Jeff DiVeronica has covered professional soccer and the Rhinos for the Democrat and Chronicle since the team's inception in 1996. "Devo's Direct Kicks" takes aim mostly at Rochester soccer, but will also highlight the USL, MLS and U.S. national team play. Devo, his nickname since college at St. John Fisher, also hosts two weekly radio shows each Saturday on WHTK-AM/FM (1280/107.3 or www.whtk.com). "Kick This!" (11 a.m.) features soccer talk, while the Canandaigua National Bank High School Sports Show (noon) covers Section V sports. E-mail Jeff at jdiveron@DemocratandChronicle.com.
Or follow him on Twitter: @RocDevo